How do you effectively study for tests? Also, by sharing your strategies with everyone, then we all learn from each other.
For big tests, I currently work throughout the day while taking short breaks (5-10 minutes) every 30 minutes up to an hour.
Your plan sounds like you are enforcing brain overload! Studying is best done in increments. After each class study the content covered and make notes of missing key ideas in your class notes. Each day read through all class notes with your mind engaged. Repetition helps you learn information and find connections in content. Your goal is not memorizing information, but learning it. Be sure you have highlighted vocabulary and theories in you note.
About the textbook, if it is actually yours. Your goal is reducing material to key information. You don’t want to highlight everything because you don’t want your book to look like a coloring book with every page colored. Mark the key idea of the paragraph and maybe a good supporting idea or vocabulary. Don’t mark entire sentences, but only complete ideas. When I did this, I had produced a mini textbook with key ideas and words of an entire chapter. Generally, I read thru the highlighted material only. I did read the complete chapter quickly right before the exam, but depended on my mini chapter. I reviewed notes right before class began. Reading and studying this way got me thru high school, college and graduate school. Your goal is learning key ideas, named concepts, people and dates. What you are striving for is your study routine that you can use efficiently over time. You know you are learning when material begins to be familiar to you.
What you want is a personal, effective routine that promotes learning without being too cumbersome to use regularly. When you ask college students how they studied, differences emerged. Nevertheless, personal style was apparent. Some used one technique successfully across academic areas. Others varied technique by subject area. No one including me ever found a one of the well known strategies worked. I was taught the SPQR?? Method in high school and never even learned the letters. Good luck on finding what works best for you!
Look at the summary and questions at the end of book chapters. Get a good night’s sleep the night before and eat a solid breakfast.
I also forgot to mention what happened last year:
My roommate wanted me to take a break from studying to watch a movie with him and his friends. He said that I shouldn’t keep myself cooped up in the room all day and night, but it was the weekend before finals week. Furthermore, I told him that I already had plans to go out with my other friends, which then made him happy that I was actually going to “take a break.”
Overall, my “break” turned out to be nothing, so I just went back to my dorm.
Are your finals over for the semester? How’d they go?
If you still want an answer to your original question, I make summaries of my class notes with just the most important stuff I know I need to remember. I try to do this as I go so I don’t have a ton piled up before exams.
@bodangles I did good with all of my classes, except for one. This unfortunately affected my GPA in a negative way. It was an aquatics class. BTW: This is coming from someone who is a non-swimmer. Also, some people in the class were better than me and they weren’t even regular swimmers.
Overall, I did okay with some of the basic strokes/moves, but the final exam wasn’t the problem. It was certain skills along with some advanced skills that gave me some issues even with extra practice from a senior swimmer who went to nationals. I took the class because at first I thought that it wasn’t going to be that hard. But, when the professor read syllabus in class, I noticed that some of the moves would be challenging for some non-swimmers in the class, like me. So, I decided to just stick out the class and hope for the best. Going back, I wished that I could’ve picked another class during last spring’s scheduling. Even then, blaming my professor for being a tough grader during the stroke and skill tests shouldn’t be my excuse, but sometimes, it’s true.
If it wasn’t for this certain class, then my GPA would’ve been higher, but my classes next semester are looking better for me. I also plan on taking summer courses online or offline to catch up. Furthermore, I switched roommates for next semester. This will give me a fresh new start. Him and his mom got a little upset with me, but they understood why I moved. To sum things up, it’s hard to live with someone who refused to make simple changes to make BOTH of our lives easier. I even met him halfway, but he didn’t with me.
On an extra note, I don’t think partying was the main reason why this happened to me IMO, but I won’t argue with anyone this time. I think that I should just let you explain your thoughts on my comment.
Compile a list of topics from your syllabus and/or the book and then the concepts you need to know in each in an outline. Break it up and complete a little bit every 12 or so hours. Type up your notes. Then color code them and read them out loud. If all else fails, handwrite them while reading them out loud.